He smooths my hair back from my face and plants soft, warm kisses on my lips, down my throat, and over my chest until my breathing calms. I stay in his arms with absolutely no thoughts of running away from him—unlike the last time.
“You’re so fuckin’ perfect,” he whispers between kisses, and I feel like I could soar to the moon.
“I’m not,” I reply. “But you make me feel like I am.”
“You are, baby. You are. And you better not disappear for a week again,” he warns.
“I won’t. I promise.”
We separate and quietly pull our clothes back on. The inside of the car is steamy and smells of sex and smoke. I want to bottle the scent and sprinkle it on my pillows and bed sheets to linger in all night. My legs are still wobbly, and my sore insides sting when we walk Acorn in the grass around the lake, but I don’t mind the lingering effects of being with him. Every movement is a reminder of him inside me, as close as close can be, and I want to emboss it all in my flesh.
After Acorn does his business, Evan drives us back to the park, which does turn out to be only fifteen minutes from the lake.
“How is it that you know this town better than I do, and I grew up here?” I joke as he turns off the headlights but leaves the car running.
“Because I wander, and you don’t.”
Hmm. I’ve never quite thought about it before, but he’s right. I’m a creature of comfort and habit.
Usually. But not lately.
“I had fun today,” I say, saving my non-wandering habits to analyze later.
“Yeah?” He gives my lips a quick kiss. “Me too. I’ll see ya soon.”
He’s out of the car with his belongings and Acorn before I have a chance to say anything, and now I’m driving home all sorts of confused and unsettled. I feel like I was reading a book that ended abruptly, with the remainder of the pages missing.
I was hoping he’d want to see me tomorrow and at least let me know that, but he left without any solid indication that he ever wanted to see me again, other than as some girl who sits on a park bench and listens to his music.
My fingers grip the steering wheel my bare ass crack was shoved against just an hour or so ago. “See ya soon,” is pretty general and vague and not a real plan in any way after having sex in a car. Especially if he enjoyed it.
This sucks.
Later, when I’m lying in bed with Archie, who is attempting to suffocate me by sitting on my chest, I use my mental microscope to analyze every word and every touch we shared today. I grab onto anything I can perceive as a sign he wants to see me again, and I form a little pile in my mind. On the very top of that pile are the words, Don’t disappear again. Surely he wouldn’t have said that if he planned on ditching me.
My boring life has unexpectedly become filled with an onslaught of excitement, sex in any place but a bed, and emotional stress. I’m overwhelmed, petrified, anxious, and falling head over heels in love.
Chapter Seven
Monday morning, I’m half an hour late to work. I took a melatonin to help me sleep the night before, and even though Ditra suggested it, telling me it’s all natural with no side effects, I struggled to wake up enough to make it to work on time. I guess having vivid dreams about things floating across my room and waking up with brain fog aren’t considered side effects.
Two coffees, a nasty side-eye from my boss, ten phone calls, and a few hours of research later, it’s lunchtime and I’m walking nervously to the park. How did what used to be my daily hour of peace and calm become a mishmash of anxiety?
An irresistible guy with a guitar and an adorable dog showed up; that’s how.
Bluesy rock music in the air tells me he’s there before he comes into view, and I can’t help but smile as I walk through the iron gates and see him sitting on a stool in his usual place. I’m sure the stool is much more comfortable than sitting on the ground, and I wonder where it came from. His eyes are closed and his body is swaying slowly and seductively as he plays. Watching him transports me to a private visual cinema of flashbacks of how his body moves and sways sans guitar.
I shake my head to clear those visions, which I shouldn’t be having in the middle of the day, surrounded by strangers, just by merely looking at him. Minutes later, I almost choke on my spoonful of yogurt when the unusually long song ends, and he raises his head to look directly at me with a fierce hunger in his eyes like that of a wolf staring down its prey. He nods to the small crowd around him and then quickly packs up his things to come take a seat next to me.